CIRG – 653:

MODULE 6
By: Kaitlin Shook-Tuttle
EMERGENT LITERACY
• “…children are entering into an early stage of becoming readers
and writers.”
• Big 5:
- Phonemic awareness
- Alphabetics (letter knowledge and phonics)
- Fluency
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension

(Reutzel, pg. 85-86)

CONCEPTS ABOUT PRINT
• Reading left to right
• Book handling
• Voice-print matching
• Punctuation

(Reutzel, pg. 86)

ALPHABETICS AND PHONEMIC
AWARENESS
• Phonemic Awareness
-
“… the ability to focus on and manipulate
phonemes in spoken words.”

• Phonological Awareness
–“…hearing and manipulating parts of spoken
language such as words, syllables, rhyming elements in
syllables, and alliteration.”

(Reutzel, pg. 88)

PLANNING FOR PRESCHOOL
STUDENTS
• Concepts about Print – environmental
print, shared reading

• Phonemic Awareness – words have

meaning, spoken syllables, phonemes

• Letter-Name Knowledge – recognizing

and writing letters

• MODEL!!!!

(Reutzel, pg. 97 - 103)

STAGES OF READING WORDS
• Prealphabetic Stage (Prephonemic): “selective
association”, use of nonphonemic features (no patterns are
formed)

• Partial Alphabetic Stage (Early Letter Name):

letter-sound relationships form, only for a letter or two
within a word

• Full Alphabetic Stage (Letter Name): apply letter-sound

relationships, begin to decode words

• Consolidated Alphabetic Stage (Within-Word

Pattern): begin making connections (finding patterns) and
begin to process longer units

(Gunning, pg. 178-179)

 PHONICS
• Stage Theory : nearly all words we learn are learned through
phonics; instruction should be leveled to each student’s stage

• Principles:
- “Phonics must teach skills necessary for decoding words.”

- Begin instruction where student lacks, not where they all know

- Skills should correlate to reading tasks being given or about to be

given

• Dialect: Use the dialect that your students use

(Gunning, pg. 180 – 181)

 PHONICS APPROACHES
• Analytical Approach: consonants not isolated; taught within whole word

• Synthetic Approach: words are decodable by sound (consonants and vowels)

• Whole or Whole to Part Approaches: use shared-reading (or listen to a selection) to

draw elements to be presented

• Embedded or Systematic Approaches:

- Embedded: key elements taught in a logical order
- Systemic: taught phonics as need occurs and in context of a selection

(Gunning, pg. 184 – 185)

 PHONICS INSTRUCTION
STRATEGIES
• Pronounceable Word Part: use parts of the
word that is known to figure out the rest word

• Analogy Strategy: compare word that is

unknown to a word that is known

• Context: use words around unknown word to

figure it out

(Gunning, pg. 214-215)

 PHONICS ELEMENTS
• Consonants: 25 sounds that can be spelled with
one letter, digraphs (2 letters), or blends/cluster
(mostly consist of l, r, or s)

• Vowels: 16 sounds (more or less depending on

dialect)

• Onset: the consonant or consonant blend preceding

the rime

• Rime (phonograms/word families): a vowel or

vowels and any consonants that follow
(Gunning, pg. 182-183)
 WAYS TO USE IN CLASSROOM:
TEACHING CONSONANTS
• Children’s Books:
- placed in classroom library

- exposure to letters

• Word Sorting:
- “classify words, and pictures on the basis of sound

and spelling and construct an understanding of the spelling

system”

- hands on activity

(Gunning, pg. 186 – 188)

 WAYS TO USE IN CLASSROOM:
TEACHING CONSONANTS
(CONTINUED)
• Initial/Final Consonants: patterns

• Troublesome Correspondences: “c” and “g”

- c sounds like /s/ and g sounds like /j/ when followed by e, i, or y

• Consonant Blends:
- begin with “s” blends and stress the separate sounds
- present words like sack-stack and sand-stand to help students hear
and see the differences

(Gunning, pg. 191-193)

 WAYS TO USE IN CLASSROOM:
TEACHING VOWELS
• Word – Building: create patterns by changing the onset of words (-
at, -et, etc.)

• Blending:
- sound: single or successive

- visual: point to letter and then sound out

• Patterns:

- CVC

- open-syllable

- final e

- vowel digraph

(Gunning, pg. 195 – 2000)

HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS
“Their spellings don’t do a good job of representing their
sounds.”

• Visually
• Introduce as new phonics are introduced
• Decode when possible
• Word Banks (word walls – change daily or as
needed)

(Gunning, pg. 241 – 246)

 SHARED AND INTERACTIVE
READING PRACTICES
• Echo Reading: teacher reads and students echo

• Choral Reading: unison, refrain, antiphonal

• Paired Reading: an advanced reader and on level/below reader team up to read a text

• Alternate Reading: teacher and student take turns reading

• Repeated Reading: repeated lessons; especially using high frequency words

• Recorded-Book Method: read along as someone else reads

• Fluency Read-Alongs: online read along programs (Starfall, Fluency Tutor, etc.)

(Gunning, pg. 249 – 252)

 FORMAL AND INFORMAL
ASSESSMENTS
• Formal
– Beginning Phonics Skills Test (consonant sounds and blends,
short and long vowels, r-vowel and other vowel words,
multisyllabic words and affixes
- Core Phonics Survey (letter names, consonant and vowel sounds
in real and pseudo-words)

• Informal
- Shared Readings
- Word Sorts

(Gunning, pg. 186 – 188, 223 - 224)

 REFERENCES
Gunning, T. G. (2020). Creating literacy instruction: For all students.
Pearson.
Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B. (2019). Teaching children to read: The
teacher makes the difference. Pearson.